New Assignments for Eight Women Faculty Members at Major Universities

Tara Zahra was appointed the Homer J. Livingston Professor in the department of history at the University of Chicago. She joined the faculty at the university in 2007 and was promoted to full professor in 2013. Professor Zahra is the author of several books including The Great Departure: Mass Migration and the Making of the Free World (W.W. Norton, 2016).

Dr. Zahra is graduate of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where she majored in history and economics. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan.

Heather M. Bush, the Kate Spade & Company Foundation Endowed Professor in the Center for Research on Violence Against Women and an associate professor in the College of Public Health at the University of Kentucky, was appointed chair of the department of biostatistics. Dr. Bush joined the faculty at the university in 2006.

Professor Bush was the valedictorian of the Class of 1999 at Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Ohio, where she majored in mathematics. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Kentucky.

Melissa Thomas-Hunt, a professor of management in the Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, was given the added duties as faculty director for Moore College at the university. Dr. Thomas-Hunt also serves as vice provost for inclusive excellence at Vanderbilt.

Professor Thomas-Hunt is a graduate of Princeton University in New Jersey, where she majored in chemical engineering. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Miriam Sherin, the Alice Twight Professor of Learning Sciences in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, was given the added duties of associate provost for undergraduate education. She has been serving as associate dean for teacher education. Professor Sherin has been on the faculty at Northwestern since 1997.

Professor Sherin is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she majored in mathematics. She holds a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of California, San Diego and a Ph.D. in science and mathematics education from the University of California, Berkeley.

Erin Besler was appointed an assistant professor of architecture at Princeton University. She was a lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles and was a co-founder of an architectural firm .

Besler is a graduate of Yale University. She earned a master’s degree at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Susannah Barton Tobin was named the Ezra Ripley Thayer Senior Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. She is the managing director of the Climenko Fellowship Program and assistant dean for academic career advising at the law school.

Tobin is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she majored in classics. She hold a master’s degree in classics from the University of Cambridge in England and a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School.

Vishakha Rawool is the new chair of the department of communication sciences and disorders at the University of Mississippi. She was a professor and director of the Audiology Research Laboratory at West Virginia University. Earlier, she taught at Southwest Missouri State University and Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania.

Professor Rawool is a graduate of Bombay University in India. She holds a master’s degree in speech language pathology from the University of Texas at El Paso and a Ph.D. in audiology from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Annelise Riles was appointed professor of law at Northwestern University in Illinois. She will also serve as executive director of the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Studies at the university. Dr. Riles has been serving as the Jack G. Clarke Professor of Law in Far East Legal Studies and professor of anthropology at Cornell University.

Professor Riles is a graduate of Princeton University in New Jersey. She holds a master’s degree in social anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science, a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School, and a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge in England.